


Treats You Kind

by freelancejouster



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bickering, Bittersweet, F/M, Goodbyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 18:23:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18900121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freelancejouster/pseuds/freelancejouster
Summary: Coming to say goodbye was probably a mistake.





	Treats You Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Set some time during S8E6.
> 
> M for a violent joke and a description of touching.

“We both know there’s nothing west of here,” Gendry said with a dull little frown.

If there was one good Daenerys had done, it was giving him his father’s name properly. He was thriving with a castle to run and a staff to execute it for him. Smelled a bit better than Arya had remembered, too, though she hadn’t thought she was much of a stickler about that sort of thing.

He’d looked positively tense in the throne when he’d greeted her and after a few moments of jittery complaints about the hardness of the seat, he’d moved to sit across the hall table from her. His skin was warm beneath the candlelight, his clothing fine but doing very little to mask how strong his arms were. She’d always liked his arms.

Coming to say goodbye was probably a mistake.

“No we don’t,” Arya said, shaking her head. “I don’t know that at all.”

“If there were something out there, don’t you think someone would have found it by now? There’s been thousands of years of Targaryens on the throne, and though it wasn’t always peaceful, it was plenty settled. Someone would have reported back about what they found.”

“Maybe they stayed.” Arya shrugged.

They’d been sitting to have the conversation, but she got up to pace. She doubted that she’d stay if she found something new, over there. But she couldn’t think of any place that she _would_ stay.

Maybe that said more about her than it should have.

Gendry snorted. He was probably thinking the same. He watched as she paced, and as always it was like she was being seen for the first time. She still wasn’t sure if she liked it.

“I can’t stand not knowing,” She admitted.

“You can’t stand most things,” he quipped. He didn’t sound mad; he so often sounded mad when they spoke to each other. So much more sentimental than her.

“That’s true,” she allowed. “I like you, though.” She hadn’t planned to admit it. But there it was, hanging in the air between them. They’d both sort of known for a long time, since she was big enough to want anything, to feel that she might be able to carve this place out of the world that she felt comfortable in. To find a skin that didn’t feel so ill-fitting as one adorned in dresses and finery.

She spotted a servant hovering in a corner, unsure of whether approaching would interrupt or not. Arya caught Gendry’s eye and nodded towards the girl, maybe a few years younger than her. Gendry smiled at the girl, though it was more of a wince, and beckoned for her to come close. She crossed the room and spoke quietly to him, placing a platter of meat and bread and cheese on the table between them. He shook his head at something she said, and Arya heard the last part of his response, “… please never feel strange interrupting, it’s part of your duties.”

She curtsied and exited. Arya grabbed a hunk of meat from the tray for something to do with her hands.

Maybe if she didn’t repeat herself, they wouldn’t have to talk about it.

Her hopes were dashed a moment later. “If you like me so much, why don’t you stay?” Gendry asked.

She had wondered if it would sound angry that she wouldn’t, but it didn’t. It was just – curious. Seeking, maybe. Looking for an answer that he hoped wasn’t true.

“Because this,” she said, gesturing to the hall around her. “Isn’t what I need. Not right now, maybe not ever. Even when I was little, I knew that I couldn’t be a lady. Not because I wasn’t tall and pretty like Sansa, but because it didn’t feel like who I was.”

“Stay for a year or two. Marry me. Give me a daughter.”

Arya snorted. “Don’t you mean a son?”

“I’ll take either,” Gendry said. He reached out for her, his hand loose around her wrist.

“You need someone to succeed you.”

“I’ll have a bastard,” Gendry quipped. “Or let my daughter rule; make her husband take her name. We’ll make it up as we go.”

Arya snorted. It certainly seemed like any of that was possible. Except for the part where it was her participating in it. “I can’t stay.”

Gendry shook his head, like he hadn’t expected any other answer. “Marry me anyway; have affairs with only dark haired men and then bring them back for me to raise. I’ll say they’re mine; no one will be able to argue differently.”

“I’m sure someone will,” Arya said with a smile.

She’d found herself leaning closer, closer. Drew his face with the tips of her fingers beneath his chin. Kissed him soft and gentle like she’d never quite allowed herself time for, before. She wasn’t sure if he’d been practicing kissing with someone else of if she was just letting herself _like_ it more now, but there was something so tender and lingering about it that she wanted to press herself into him right there, to maybe climb upon the table between them and then right onto his lap.

She was sure he’d let her; she didn’t believe that he’d ever really _wanted_ to say no to her, even through all the times he’d made himself.

“Arya,” he gasped, pulling back. He didn’t go far, just sat there with his eyes squinched closed. He looked nearly winded, as though the kiss had knocked the air from his lungs.

She let their foreheads rest together. “Gendry,” she said quietly.

“Let me come with you,” he said.

“You don’t mean that.”

“I might,” he said, but he didn’t sound sure.

“You’ll be happier here,” Arya soothed. She just wanted to touch him more than just this gentle resting together. Wanted to undo the strings of his jacket and his tunic and run her hands all over his chest. And then have him take his pants off himself, maybe. But that probably wasn’t fair to either of them.

“You don’t know that,” Gendry argued. He cupped his hand to the side of her face. His hands were still a bit rough; it was still every bit as nice.

“No, I do,” Arya joked. “I know everything.”

“You’re not your brother.”

“No, but I wonder what he’d say if I let you follow me across the water,” Arya said. She could picture him, with that faraway look he’d had since he’d come back from the north. Speaking slowly with all the knowledge in the world in his grasp. She made a joke instead; it was easier than actually wondering what he might know about what happened next to her – but then again, she was pretty sure the old gods didn’t know what was west either. “Probably something about how our selfishness has cost him a great house and then something cryptic about our decisions not mattering in the grand scheme of things.”

“This isn’t funny,” Gendry complained, pulling back to look at her, dropping his hand from her face. He wasn’t teary. She was grateful for that.

“No,” Arya allowed. “No, it’s not.” She stood and walked around the table to sit beside him, pulling the hand into her lap. A compromise of closeness.

Gendry was quiet for a moment. And then, “How long do you think you’ll be gone for?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I supposed I could come back in a month, storm-wrecked and disenchanted. It’s just as likely that I fall off the edge of the world somewhere. Or that I find what’s west and stay there until I’m old and gray.”

“I—“

“Don’t you dare offer to wait for me,” Arya said, shaking her head.

“I wasn’t – “

“Don’t you dare put your life on hold on the off chance I get bored with exploring in a year or five or twenty. If I come back here to find you mopey and unmarried, I’ll cut all your fingers off.”

At that, Gendry laughed. “I don’t doubt it for a minute.” He was quiet for a moment. Took a bit of the cheese off of his plate and chewed slowly. “Okay, I’ll be happily married the next time we meet,” he said, as though that decided it.

Arya grinned. “Good.”

Everyone else she’d had to say goodbye to were going to be easy to leave. Not in that she wouldn’t miss them – her sister, her brothers, Lady Brienne, it’s just that she hadn’t worried in the same way about how to tell them. Even if they argued with her or called her stupid and then told her they’d miss her in the same sentence. It hadn’t felt quite as big as this conversation. None of them had felt quite so much like they might be her future.

“So, when do you leave?” Gendry asked eventually.

“The day after next. Why?” she asked with a laugh. “Are you so eager to get rid of me?”

“No,” Gendry assured her, smile just a little bit cheeky. “No, I was just wondering if you were planning to stay the night.”

**Author's Note:**

> And then Gendry gets pegged. The end.
> 
> Follow for crying and nonsense (fair warning; it's mostly kpop)  
> [tumblr](https://sugaquillz.tumblr.com)  
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